Kevin Harvick: ‘Sometimes You Have To Do What You Think Is Right’

Kevin Harvick has moved on from his Dover incident with Denny Hamlin, the Richard Childress Racing driver said Thursday afternoon during an appearance to promote next month’s Martinsville Speedway race.

“I think everybody saw what he said,” Harvick said of Hamlin’s comments that the two had spoken and were friends outside the racetrack. “I think it’s all done.”

A local reporter tried to follow up, but Harvick said he wouldn’t comment further on Hamlin.

“If you ask it 14 different ways, you’ll probably get the same answer,” he said. “So write down the next one.”

But asked about his motivation to retaliate against Hamlin for his comments, Harvick said he felt the need to defend the RCR organization.

“Anytime you have a company or you have people, there’s a lot of things you feel good about being a part of,” he said. “Sometimes you have to do what you think is right for the company or the people.

“Our team didn’t really have anything to do with it, to tell you the truth. To be drug into it was probably the switch that ignited the fire and the things that happened.”

Harvick also said he was frustrated after Dover last week because he finished 15th on a day when he had a top-10 car, costing him valuable points in the championship hunt.

“We knew that going into last week, it was probably going to be the worst (Chase track),” he said. “We felt like we had a top-10 car and it just got away from us there at the end.

“Those are the days that you don’t need to have those things happen. If you have a top-10 car, you’d better finish in the top 10. We let some points slip away we probably shouldn’t have.”

As a result, Harvick is in fifth place, 65 points behind leader Hamlin after the first two Chase races. Fortunately, the next two weeks are good tracks for his No. 29 team.

The goal now, he said, is to make sure he’s “not any further behind than we are right now when we come out of California.”

“(The deficit) doesn’t need to get in the triple digits by the time it’s halfway,” he said.

To that end, Harvick’s strategy will be to look at his day compared with whoever is leading the points – regardless of where the other Chase drivers in the top five finish.

“(The leader) is the guy I want to come out gaining points on,” he said. “Whether you lose points to fourth or fifth, I feel our gap has to come down the next two weeks to whoever the leader is.”